I used to live a consumerist lifestyle but I found my way to this blog/forum and changed my ways completely. My wife is also on board. Luckily we have a large enough income that turning things around wasn't TOO painful, but what about for people who have lower incomes and worse spending habits?
I have friends that fall into this category..lots of them. Also coworkers and relatives are this way. Very little or no savings, have to have the newest apple product, very little 401k contributions, brand new $30k cars, tons of debt, and no plan to change anything. So there are 100's of thousands of people like this in the US.. how is this sustainable?
I'm planning for my future and as long as there are no gigantic issues in my life I will have a very comfortable retirement, probably early. This issue doesn't seem to worry a LOT of people, so what's going to happen with them? Are we just going to have a lot of very poor people in the US in the future?